Movies
‘Saw’ Producer to Remake ‘Pumpkinhead’
The 1988 horror slasher Pumpkinhead is the latest horror film to land on the “remake” table, although the man behind the updated version is trying his best to prove that his intentions are nothing short of honorable.
Peter Block, known as one of the executive producers of the Saw franchise, has obtained the rights to the Pumpkinhead franchise, according to EW, and he wants to bring the creature back from the cinema graveyard. He enlisted a young scribe by the name of Nate Atkins to write the script.
“‘Pumpkinhead’ is one of my favorite horror films of the late ’80s, early ’90s. Stan Winston sits on that Mount Rushmore of iconic filmmakers because of his creature designs, and that was his first directing effort. The creature’s great but the emotional story is wonderful as well,” Block explains.
The updated version is going to pay homage to the original film but only those who know the first well will catch on. “There’s a lot of Easter eggs for people who know the original — iconic shots and iconic lines that we’re going to use.” However, Block assures everyone that there is a purpose to this remake, stating, “…we’ve enhanced the setting, and we’ve expanded the characters somewhat, to give it a different kind of experience.”
Perhaps the biggest point that Block makes is that he recognizes the respect the horror community has for Stan Winston and practical FX, saying, “I am a big proponent of practical effects. That was the great thing about the original. A lot of the films I still respond to most today, it’s because of the practical effects. We think that it’s going to be a nice slow reveal, lots of scares and lots of action in the beginning, and a great creature in the end, which everybody should be able to look at and say, ‘Oh, that’s Pumpkinhead!’ It’s not like you’re all of a sudden going to find that it’s some amorphous, nebulous, CGI wispy thing. You’re going to know it came from the Pumpkinhead family lineage.”
In the original film, which starred Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Alien3), a store owner is overcome with grief after the accidental death of his son. Seeking out vengeance, he teams with a local witch to raise the entity known as “Pumpkinhead” so that those who cause him so much grief can suffer their own horrific fates.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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